


Jealousy is a Painful Passion

by hamsterboo



Category: Never Have I Ever (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, After 1x10, Comedy, Developing Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Jealousy, Love Confessions, One Shot, Pining, Post-Canon, Romance, Senior year, academic insults, devi dying over bens eyes but its just me fawning, it wasnt supposed to be this long, lowkey aged up, what is word count control
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:54:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25581673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hamsterboo/pseuds/hamsterboo
Summary: After Malibu, Devi did what she does best - running away. She ran away from Ben, straight into Paxton's arms, but she knew her relationship with Paxton wasn't what she was looking for. After breaking up with him before senior year, Devi was expecting to enjoy her last year of high school with her (now) three best friends. But what she wasn't expecting was that whenever she saw her newest best friend with his girlfriend, she’d feel the green little monster called envy begin to spring up inside of her, and now, she's simply screwed.or: 5 times Devi was jealous of the females around Ben, and the one time he noticed
Relationships: Ben Gross/Devi Vishwakumar
Comments: 14
Kudos: 80





	Jealousy is a Painful Passion

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone :)   
> Welcome to my first NHIE fic brought to you by the Hamilton soundtrack and throwback pop songs~
> 
> I'm not going to lie, my friend and I watched the show together and absolutely fell in love with the characters. Then we ended up reading a few fics here, and I was inspired (by magnetichearts, flashlightinacave, and cori_the_bloody) to write one of my own. I've been writing for a while, but I haven't written a fanfiction in a LONG while lmao hopefully I was within canon enough though. I've never written a 5+1 things type fic but there's a first for everything! Enjoy~

When it came to Ben Gross, Devi honestly didn’t care much for him at first. Sure, he was in nearly all of her classes, so she saw him quite a bit during the day, and the only times she was ever away from him was during lunch and after school, but she never felt the need to _care_ about his presence in her life as a human being. They bickered, they fought, and they were vicious towards each other, but it was the way the world had meant their relationship to be. They weren’t anything to each other except thorns in each other’s sides (and everyone else’s with them breaking out into arguments in the middle of class all the time).

It wasn’t until her life was turned upside down that she really realized just how much she looked for Ben’s existence in her life as something like a compass — something to always direct her towards North to make sure she was on the right track for at least _one_ thing in her life. When her father passed away, Ben’s constant annoying need to make fun of her and taunt her over grades was something that she used to keep herself afloat in school. She used him as a means to make sure her grades didn’t start slipping under the pressure of a daughter missing her father and a girl missing the use of her legs.

Even after she regained the use of her legs, she was unconsciously using him as a means to connect with someone who understood how it was to be lonely. Even though she had her mother and her cousin along with her two best friends, she still felt absolutely alone in the world without her father. Who better to understand how she felt except Ben, a boy who was left alone in a big house without parents to talk to and without a girlfriend who cared?

Devi moving into Ben’s house was truly a bonding moment for the two of them, but Devi knows that their bonding had already begun when she gifted him a box of California Brittle on Ben’s sixteenth birthday. The stunning smile that he had given her had made her heart happy, and for a moment, she felt as though she was drowning in his intensely blue eyes that reminded her of the ocean on a clear, sunny day (ignoring the fact that he’d tried to kiss her twice afterwards).

She realized that maybe, just maybe, they’d be able to become friends. Their arguments from then on were less vicious, less antagonistic. They were almost bordering on being…fond, almost encouraging to one another to try harder to keep up with each other. The taunts and the comebacks were missing their usual bite. Even the frustrating nickname of ‘David’ that he had given her seemed endearing after some point.

Then Malibu happened.

The kiss happened. The mind-blowing, amazing, _I-can’t-believe-I-just-did-that_ kiss.

But Paxton called.

And, as usual, Devi ran from her feelings, and she ran from Ben. She played it off as adrenaline and her emotions being all haywire, and Ben, the sweet, kind boy who couldn’t bear to be left alone again, played it off as being absolutely fine with being set aside as long as he had a new friend in his life.

She didn’t know what those feelings for Ben were, and she was more than happy to forget that they had ever existed.

So, Devi dated Paxton and made up with her family and friends, and Ben was always there right beside her. He stuck with Shira, and his relationship with her had somehow gotten better over the years. Devi would hear all about how Shira started spending more time with Ben outside of school from people in school following Shira’s Instagram, and she finally managed to get out of him that he had brought the issues up to the girl. Shira had agreed that they hadn’t been spending much time, and their relationship had gotten much, much happier. Devi could tell Ben was happy because _he_ was the one posting the pictures onto Instagram, and with that, Devi was happy.

Paxton and Devi mutually decided to break up in the middle of the summer before Devi’s senior year of high school because they were both getting much busier with their lives. Devi only had a few months of school before college applications were to be submitted, and Paxton was moving across the country to attend college. It was the only way things were going to be bearable for the both of them, but they did decide to stay friends. Honestly, Devi didn’t expect her first breakup to go so well, but then again, her first relationship hadn’t started out normally.

However, Devi knew that the main reason for them breaking up wasn’t just the fact that long distance was going to be hard to manage. It was the fact that after a while of dating Paxton, she was comfortable with the way everything was in her life, including the role that Paxton had. He was her boyfriend, but she quickly realized that she didn’t really _like_ Paxton. She liked the idea of having a boyfriend who was hot and kind, and she liked the idea that people would know that Devi Vishwakumar was the girl who was one of Paxton’s longest relationships. It wasn’t completely as though she was blowing off Paxton – she truly cared for him, but after a while, she wasn’t sure if that’s how she was supposed to feel in a relationship, and she kept comparing her relationship to what Ben and Shira’s seemed to be. The two of them had fun together going on different dates and enjoying each other’s presence, but more importantly, they could be real around each other. Devi constantly felt like she had to control her outbursts with things she felt strongly about (such as the factual inaccuracies in the random things that Trent would say sometimes). She would control herself, bottle everything in, so Paxton wouldn’t think of her as being annoying.

But now that that was all over, Devi was expecting a fun and fulfilling senior year where she would manage to get into Princeton, enjoy the last year of school with her – now – three best friends, and she was actually okay with going to prom stag. After all, Eleanor had Oliver, Fabiola had Eve, and Ben had Shira.

What she wasn’t expecting was that whenever she would see her newest best friend walking the halls with his girlfriend, she’d feel the green little monster called envy begin to spring up inside of her. The feelings that she had squashed down far, far inside of her a year and half ago were slowly rising its head, trying to take control of Devi’s self-control. While she was with Paxton, she would deflect the feelings she occasionally felt onto Paxton, and she told herself it was okay. All she was feeling was the lingering attachment after Malibu, but now, she wasn’t so sure.

It was still early in the school year – mid September – when she first realized that she was jealous of Shira. Devi had just gotten to her locker, and she pulled out her lip gloss out of her backpack to put it on because she hadn’t gotten a chance before running out of her house this morning. Looking into the mirror, she saw Ben walk behind her, presumably going to his locker a few feet away from her. She hurried up cleaning away the excess lip gloss, and she grabbed her chemistry textbook before slamming the locker closed. She walked up to Ben with a small smile on her face.

“Hey, Ben,” she greeted as she leaned on the lockers, her shoulder pressing quite painfully into a lock, but she didn’t want to move. Ben looked over his shoulder at her and smiled, and her heart fluttered as she looked into his eyes. There was nothing different about him – he didn’t style his hair any differently, and he hadn’t changed his clothing style, but he was emitting this aura that drew Devi in. Her attention was caught on his eyes, and they somehow glittered in the light. She would never admit this to anyone, but his smile and his eyes were the two things she absolutely loved about Ben. She blinked at him, mostly to internally yell at herself for feeling that way, but also to give herself some time to make sure she was filtering the words she spoke.

“Morning, Devi. Kill anyone with your hair, yet?” he asked with a slight smirk. She scoffed. Devi had tied her hair up this morning, and Ben was referring to the time that she had accidentally whipped her hair right into Paxton’s face a couple of months ago. Paxton had barely survived from getting a cut in his eye. It was a whole situation that Devi _still_ hasn’t lived down. 

“If you keep it up, I might just _accidentally_ smack my ponytail in your face. You know it’ll hurt,” she threatened, pointing her index finger at him. She honestly wondered how his mouth opening didn’t ruin everything for her, but it somehow made things fun. She _liked_ messing around with Ben.

“Oh no, I’m so scared,” he whined sarcastically. She glared at him, and he just laughed before turning back to his locker to sort through his books. Her eyes drifted to his arms, and she watched as he grabbed what he needed. “You know you’re more like a kicked puppy than anything else?” he asked when he also grabbed his chemistry textbook and a notebook before closing the locker.

“You know you’re more like a piece of shit than anything else?” she countered. She knew it was a bad comeback, but she couldn’t think of anything else in that moment. The two of them walked together to their chemistry class, bickering the entire way.

“Well this so-called ‘piece of shit’ is going to absolutely destroy you in today’s quiz.”

“Oh, please. That’s a ridiculous notion that I’m not even going to consider humoring.”

“You sound like I’m Alexander Hamilton asking Thomas Jefferson to allow the government to start a national bank.”

Devi stopped dead in the hallway, shock written all over her face. Ben nearly walked past her before he realized she’d stopped walking. People around them glared at the two before walking around them, but Devi couldn’t care less. “I can’t believe you literally just compared me to _Thomas Jefferson_. He was a slave trader,” she deadpanned.

Ben scoffed at her, rolling his eyes at her. “You’re right, you’d never have the intellectual capability to become a president.”

“You-“ she began, fully prepared to insult him further about saying how Alexander Hamilton was a cheating asshole who was _murdered_ , but she was cut off by Shira coming towards the two of them from the other end of the hallway.

“Ben!” she called, waving at him with her phone in her hand. Ben immediately smiled and loosened an arm, so he could readily wrap it around Shira’s waist when she came closer. She tucked into him like she was perfectly fit in her place, even though she was a bit taller than him in her heels. Devi smiled at the two of them, not really feeling it. At this point, it was a reflex for her to smile at the sight of the couple. Maybe it was because she was just happy to see Ben happy – she didn’t know, but there was a part of her that was feeling extremely empty and as though there was a sudden hole in her heart.

Well, considering she had just recently broken up with Paxton, it made sense that she would feel as such looking at Ben and Shira since she had something like that once upon a time, and now she doesn’t. She told herself that theory, and she stuck to it, pretending that she didn’t have any feelings for the boy standing in front of her.

But there was a nagging part of Devi (that she wished she could shut up) that told her that she didn’t feel that emptiness when she was around Eleanor and Oliver or Fabiola and Eve. It wasn’t there when she saw others around her kissing or holding hands.

She watched awkwardly (with that damned smile still on her face) as Shira kissed Ben on the cheek and murmured something in his ear, and she had the sudden urge to either scream, kick Ben in the shin, push Shira away, or do all three.

Devi knew she should look away, that she should walk away, but something had glued her feet to the ground. She couldn’t stop staring at how Ben looked at Shira, and she wished that he would look at her like that.

Her heart sped up at the thought as soon as it crossed her mind, and she blinked furiously, trying to keep any emotion off of her face, removing the smile from her face. Through much effort, she forced her eyes away from the couple and focused on the posters lining the hallway above the lockers.

She had to leave. She had to get away. She was running again, and she knew it. But she couldn’t deal with this. Not now. Not when Ben was touching Shira and kissing her. Not when she wanted to be in her place.

She murmured a quick goodbye, saying she’d see him in class, and walked away as fast as she could without making it seem like she was in an absolute hurry to get away from them.

There was no way she could be jealous of Shira. Devi nearly scoffed at herself because _what even?_ Ben was…Ben. She tried to think of all the bad things about Ben. He was annoying, he was dumb, he tried to upstage her all the time, he had the most infuriatingly blue eyes, and he had the most eye-catching smile she’d seen.

Devi’s eyes widened as she realized that even her brain couldn’t come up with anything seriously bad about Ben. As she stepped into the classroom, she unceremoniously dropped the textbook onto the desk, sat down, and smacked her forehead straight onto the textbook with her eyes closed, hoping that the bruises might somehow remove the thoughts from her brain. For a moment, she remained that way, but then she repeated the motion for a bit until she realized that she wasn’t hitting a hard textbook, but rather a soft palm.

“Are you trying to perform osmosis with the textbook in a really painful way?” she heard Ben joke, and she had to bite her tongue to stop herself from groaning, both at his kindness and the fact that he would have the audacity to assume such a thing.

With the new painful information that she was _jealous_ of Shira, Devi tried her best to avoid Ben whenever Shira was around. She could deal with Ben alone, but she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to control herself if she had to watch Ben touch Shira when all she wanted was Ben to hold _her_ hand.

Now, avoiding the whole Ben-Shira situation was fairly easy because she wasn’t friends with Shira, and if Ben was going to be with Shira, Devi wouldn’t be around. If she ran into the two in the hallways, she simply had to walk the other way.

But this wasn’t always a foolproof plan – especially when Shira decided to come to areas where she usually wouldn’t be caught dead in. Such as the library where Ben and Devi were studying one day after school. They had grabbed a table towards the back of the room, away from where the others were sitting.

Devi always found that it was easy to study with Ben around because she knew that they wouldn’t let each other get distracted, but if she needed a quick stress relief, she could just spew some insults at him or dumb jokes, and it would be all good.

“You know,” she started, as she flung her pencil down in the crease of her textbook. She was tired, and her eyes hurt from staring at the words to the point where they were beginning to blur together. “If we were in a cell, you’d be an A-site of a ribosome.”

“That makes no sense,” Ben responded, quirking an eyebrow, but she could tell he was curious about where she was going with this. Devi struggled to keep her smile off her face because it was such a dumb joke, and she knew it would bother Ben endlessly.

“I’m not done yet,” she responded, mimicking his expression by quirking an eyebrow of her own.

“Fine, why would I be an A-site?” He waved a hand at her to answer.

“Because you’re an a-hole.” Devi’s stiff expression cracked, and she smirked when Ben’s left eye twitched slightly. The library light was bright, and his eyes sparkled.

“That was awful, David.”

“Good enough to get your attention and distract you, Gross,” Devi laughed.

Ben rolled his eyes at her, but he smiled, and Devi’s heartbeat quickened. “Well at least we know that comedy isn’t a plan for you in the future.”

“Hey, make me laugh and maybe it might be in yours.”

“You won’t laugh at my jokes,” he shrugged.

“Because they’re not funny?” she asked, leaning her elbows on the table and settling her hand on her clasped hands.

“Because the only culture you have is bacteria.” Devi blinked at him.

“And you said my joke was bad,” she spoke slowly, as though her joke had personally offended her, which in a way, it had.

“You asked for it,” he shrugged again, directing his attention back to his notebook. With a quick glance at Ben’s face, he was reading his own notes, his blue eyes scanning the sheets in front of him, but the corners of his lips were turned slightly upwards anyways. Devi just shook her head and turned her attention back to her notes, but there was a smile on her face.

They sat there in comfortable silence for a bit longer before Devi decided she needed some music, and soon after, Shira appeared. She slid into the seat next to Ben, and at first, Devi didn’t even notice because she was so engrossed in her AP biology homework, and she had earbuds in to let her focus on her work. She had only noticed when she saw out of the corner of her eye that another hand had joined theirs on the table. Devi looked up slightly and saw Ben holding Shira’s hand, and they had placed it on the table so that the back of Ben’s hand was pressed up on the table and Shira’s was facing the ceiling. Shira was holding a phone up near her face, and it seemed like she was taking a picture of their clasped hands. Her suspicions were confirmed a few seconds later when Shira’s ring glinted in the light of the phone’s flash and blinded Devi for a moment. Devi turned her attention back to her textbook and rolled her eyes in order to avoid Ben seeing her reaction. Even after their relationship had gotten better, it seemed like Shira was still absolutely obsessed with showing it off online – as if showing things off online was the only way to ensure that a relationship was there. Devi wanted to say that out loud, but it really wasn’t her place to do so, and her therapy sessions had actually helped her quite a bit in staying in control of her emotions. Granted, the current situation was _really_ testing her, but she could do it.

She hoped.

The worst part of the entire situation was that she couldn’t even walk away from this mess of a situation because it’d seem weird for Devi to suddenly leave from a study session without a call from her mom or Kamala (or Kamala’s fiancé, Prashant). So, she did the only rational thing she could do – destroy her ears, and so, she turned up her music.

Really, she should’ve had enough foresight to realize that she wouldn’t keep herself from looking at the two lovebirds near her, but she cracked at some point and looked up right as Shira reached for Ben’s jaw to pull him closer to her, and a blink later they were kissing. Normally, Devi would’ve rolled her eyes and told them to keep the PDA out of the library, but the current Devi was frozen in her spot, unable to believe the heartache she was feeling. She couldn’t breathe for a moment, and she felt her heart feeling unbelievably heavy in her chest.

She couldn’t feel jealous – she had _no right_ to. Her heart had no reason to decide that it was Ben that it wanted when she had just gotten out of a relationship, and he was in a relationship of his own. Devi knew it was her fault for letting Ben go before, but she had to move on. Devi tightened her left hand into a fist, her nails digging into her palm as she tried to focus on her notes. Her right hand shook as she tried to neatly write down each letter, but the tears that were beginning to make an appearance were really making things a lot harder than they needed to be.

It was very obvious to her at this point that she wasn’t just jealous of their relationship, she was jealous of Shira because she was the one dating Ben – not her. But it was too late for her to do anything about it. She was a year and a half too late.

Devi stared at her phone, willing it to ring, willing her mother to telepathically realize her only daughter was in pain and needed her.

Unfortunately, life didn’t work like that, and Devi discreetly wiped the stray tear that escaped her eyes as she ripped out her headphones and stood up, pushing the chair back with a little more force than necessary. The noise caused Shira to jump away from Ben with a startle, the two of them looking at Devi with wide eyes. They had kissed for maybe twenty seconds, but even that was twenty seconds too many. They were too close, and it was causing Devi to have heart palpitations.

She was mad at Shira for kissing Ben. She was mad at Ben for letting Shira kiss him so publicly like that, and she was mad at herself for feeling such a way.

“I have to go. My mom just texted me,” she said in a low tone as a goodbye, and she grabbed her stuff and left the two of them staring at her blankly.

She wasn’t even the one being kissed, and yet here her heart was, beating out of her chest as if it were her. Maybe that was why people considered love and anger to be such close emotions.

Devi still wasn’t clear about her feelings over Ben and Shira dating and what that meant for her heart, but she also wasn’t sure if she should be happy or sad when the two of them broke up towards November.

It was the talk of the entire school the day after Shira updated her Facebook status to “single,” and had deleted all the pictures of the two of them from her Instagram page. That didn’t surprise Devi, though. What surprised her the most was that Ben did the same with his Instagram page. She frowned as she scrolled through his page before class started, not realizing that Ben was the type of person to completely remove someone from his life in such a manner. He hadn’t mentioned anything to her the day before, and she had to find out from hearing the whispers and gossip that had made its way throughout the school hallways. As Eleanor and Fabiola settled into seats around her in their AP Literature class, — Fabiola behind her and Eleanor next to her — she looked at them curiously, just holding up her phone to them so they could see Ben’s Instagram page.

“I don’t know what happened,” Fabiola whispered to the two of them, leaning in towards the two, before setting her notebook and copy of Hamlet down on her desk. The three of them huddled in slightly, quickly talking before Ben came in the room.

“Did he say anything to you?” Eleanor asked Devi.

“No! I found out when I got to school and heard everyone talking,” she whispered back. She shook her lit up phone at them “Ben doesn’t do this type of stuff.”

“Do we really know that, though? Shira was his first relationship, and they dated for nearly four years,” Fabiola responded, stealing Devi’s phone to look through Ben’s page.

“Either way! He’s too nice for that,” Eleanor said. “Something big must’ve happened if they both removed each other from their lives like that. We all know Shira used Ben just for his celebrity connections.”

“How about you three just ask me instead of gossiping away like those old ladies that David’s always complaining about?” came a voice behind them, and all three girls jumped in their seats, startled by Ben’s sudden appearance. He had snuck up on them so quietly that Devi wondered how he’d learn to quiet his giant steps.

“Hi, Ben!” Eleanor greeted him with a wave, pretending as if he hadn’t just caught them.

“Hey,” he said wryly. Devi shot her a glare before turning back to Ben who had just sat down in front of her.

“So,” Devi spoke slowly, trying to come up with a way to do damage control because it was clear that her friends weren’t going to do any of the sort when they both immediately started discussing the reading they had for last night’s homework. “What’s up?”

Ben turned around in his seat and looked at her with an eyebrow raised, his blue eyes shining under the light in the classroom.

“You tell me,” he responded, looking at her phone that was now face down on the desk. She blushed slightly before picking it up and putting it away in her bag. An awkward silence settled over them, and Fabiola finally got tired of the silence and poked Devi in the neck with her pencil.

“Ow!” she winced, rubbing the area. “Why?!” she asked, turning around to look at Fabiola.

“You need a push,” she shrugged. Devi stared at her for a beat longer before responding.

“That was poke!”

“Speaking of pokes,” Eleanor started, “it seems like Shira’s poking someone else now…” The three of them spun to look at her, and she was casually twirling a strand of hair around her index finger. “What? You people need to start asking directly.”

“Because you three are so good at communication,” Ben retorted.

“We all know you’re talking about Devi, Ben. It’s okay to be straightforward,” Eleanor responded, reaching over to pat Ben’s arm.

“Hey! Why am I getting targeted? I did literally nothing.” They shrugged, and Devi struggled to come up with a response. Her eyes strayed to her own copy of Macbeth that laid on her desk, and she figured she’d just do what she did best.

“I would beat you all up, but my hands would get infected.”

It was the modern version of what Shakespeare once wrote, but it was close enough.

Ben made a sound that sounded like a cross between a cough and a laugh, and he choked on his saliva. Eleanor groaned, and Fabiola poked Devi in the neck again.

“Fab!” she snapped at her friend before she turned back to look at Ben nearly dying in his seat. Trying to control her own laugh, she patted Ben on the back gently.

“That was the worst rendition of a Shakespearean insult I’ve ever heard.”

“Oh, shut up,” Devi grumbled, hitting his back a lot harder than she was before. He winced but grinned at her anyways.

“Okay, we have five minutes before class starts. Ben, spill,” Fabiola ordered from behind Devi. He rolled his eyes, and the four of them huddled up slightly. Devi’s eyes wandered over to the rest of the room, and she noticed everyone staring at Ben. Her eyebrows furrowed in worry for how Ben was taking it all, and she looked at Ben for a second before focusing in on the conversation.

“I broke up with her.”

Okay, so maybe he was taking it a lot better.

“Why? Didn’t your relationship get better?” Devi asked. He hesitated for a moment, his eyes going back and forth between the three girls before lingering at Devi’s face for a split second, and then he slowly nodded.

“Yeah, but…after a while it was the same old stuff. She kept spending time on her phone, and it was like a repeat of sophomore year, so I called it quits. She threw a fit, but mostly because she was upset over not getting to meet Billie Eilish later this year.”

“You’re meeting who – when – what now?” Eleanor asked, jumbling her words slightly. Her eyes were wide, and she was gripping the edge of her desk. She was a huge Billie Eilish fan, and it was showing very clearly.

“My dad got invited to some end of the year concert, and I was allowed to go along with one other person. Shira found out, and she freaked.”

“Take me!” Eleanor half-whispered, half-yelled. They ignored her and continued talking.

“Is that why you took down all the pictures from your Instagram?” Fabiola asked.

“She deleted them,” he shrugged.

“So…you’re not upset?” Devi asked.

“Not really.”

“Oh.” The conversation ended there when their teacher walked into the room, and she started the lecture about the latest act of Macbeth that they were studying. Devi’s mind wandered back to what Ben said, and she felt this strange flutter of hope in her heart that maybe, just maybe, they could go back to what they had in the moment at the cliff in Malibu, and they’d be able to start over. She knew she should’ve felt bad that Ben broke up with someone, and now he was the talk of the school, but she also didn’t care as much simply because Ben seemed perfectly fine. He was still her Ben.

Devi’s attention returned to what her teacher was saying when she heard “grade” come out of her teacher’s mouth, and honestly, it was amazing how selective her hearing could get when she was zoned out that she wouldn’t hear anything anyone was saying, but as soon as grades were mentioned, she’d be attentive.

“…for a grade. The in-class assignments will be worth 10% of your overall grade for this semester. I’ll pass around the sheets with the directions for this assignment around. You’ll be paired with the person sitting on your left.” There were some groans and some cheers around the class over this, but Devi was happy. Smiling, she looked over at Eleanor, happy to be paired with her. Fabiola was sitting next to Eve, so they were a pair, and in front of Eleanor was another girl from their class named Tessa who would be paired with Ben.

All anyone could hear in the class for the next thirty seconds was the scraping of the desks and chairs on the ground as people pushed their desks together to work on the assignment. They had to pick a character from the play and connect them to a symbol or a theme.

In natural Ben fashion, he turned around to look at Devi, his face smug. Devi rolled her eyes and resisted the urge to smile at how excited he looked as she waited for the quip that was about to come out of his mouth.

“Get ready, you egg, young fry of treachery.”

There it was.

“Are you insinuating that you’re going to _murder_ me?” she retorted.

“No, but I am insinuating that you’re going to get crushed in these assignments.”

“The tartness of your face sours ripe grapes, Gross,” Devi responded, keeping up with the Shakespearean insults.

“David, you’re like a toad; ugly and venomous.”

“Wow, thanks,” she replied sarcastically. “As if you’re fit for any place but hell.”

“Okay, as much as I’m enjoying hearing you apply Shakespeare quotes in conversation to show how much attention you two have been paying since we started the unit, it’s time to get started,” their teacher spoke, tapping her index finger on Ben’s desk.

Rolling her eyes, Devi got to work with Eleanor, and they both began scouring the play for quotes and other evidence of what they were trying to prove for the assignment. At some point, while Eleanor was basically re-reading the play, Devi slightly looked up and found herself looking at the back of Ben’s neck and shoulders. His head was hunched down as he wrote something down on the paper. She followed as his right hand reached over to Tessa’s book and pointed at something written in there, and she realized that the closer he got to her, the more her own heart felt like it was being squished and crushed under his thumb.

It hurt for her to breathe, and it also hurt for her to realize that Ben had so much control, so much power, over her. She was just staring at how Ben’s muscles moved under his shirt when he moved his arms, and how he would slightly laugh at what Tessa was saying. He smiled at her at times, and she could see that his attention was fully on her. Devi wanted nothing more than to force Ben to look at her and to smile at her. She wanted to sit where Tessa was sitting, and —

Devi snorted to herself when she realized why she was acting like an idiot, effectively cutting off her internal rambling. She was jealous of _Tessa_ , a girl who Ben had barely spoken to. She was jealous of how close she was to Ben, and Devi wished that she had forced Eleanor to sit in front of her, so Ben would’ve sat next to her.

“Devi?” whispered Eleanor. Devi jumped in her seat, and she turned to look at her friend. “Why were you staring at Ben?”

“Oh, I wasn’t. I was staring at the board, trying to think of anything else,” Devi fumbled out, hoping the excuse made sense. Eleanor slowly nodded, and it didn’t look like she completely believed it, but she also didn’t press further. Devi let out a quiet sigh, and with one last look at Ben, she went back to working on the assignment.

The entire class period went by wondering if every time Ben worked with a female, she’d feel the same crushing sensation as earlier and wondering just how far Ben’s control over her extended.

But apparently, it seemed like it extended to females Ben _fawned_ over as well. Honestly, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to strangle herself or Ben when they were waiting for Eleanor and Fabiola to join the two of them for lunch one day late November, right before Thanksgiving break.

“Okay but you can’t deny how great Zendaya’s been acting,” he emphasized as he bit into his sandwich. Devi groaned as she spooned some rice into her mouth, and although she was groaning because she was sick of hearing Ben praise Zendaya left and right, Ben misunderstood her groans to be of her not trusting Ben on how great of an actress Zendaya could be.

“I’m serious, David.” Truth be told, she had seen the first episode of _Euphoria_ , and she was incredibly impressed by her acting. The only complaint Devi had was that it just wasn’t a show for her, and so she hadn’t gone on to watch the rest of the episodes. Her life was dark and bleak enough without having to watch a show that was focused on such heavy themes. But she decided to just play by what Ben was thinking, so he wouldn’t guess her real feelings.

“How hard is it to act high?” Devi muttered in response, knowing very well that she was going into dangerous territory because if Eleanor were to overhear, Devi would have hell on her hands to deal with.

“Devi, do you know that it’s often the simplest actions that are the hardest to portray because you can’t _act_ them effortlessly?” she heard a voice say behind her, and she tried her hardest not to wince, because _shit_.

Taking a deep breath, she turned to look at Eleanor who sat down next to Ben, in front of Devi, while Fabiola sat across Ben. “We all know that waking up is super hard to act, but seriously? Zendaya’s just high throughout the show.” She was just digging a hole for herself at this point, and she figured she might as well dig a hole big enough for her casket to fit.

“Have you even seen an episode?” Ben questioned, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes!” For the first time since this conversation began, she wasn’t actually lying.

“Have you seen _past_ the first episode?” he asked, squinting his eyes at her. His blue eyes bore into her, and for a moment she thought he could see straight into her soul. She actually slightly flushed at that, and she sighed, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear.

“…no.”

“See!” he cheered, pointing his right hand’s index finger at her (the sandwich in his other hand was clearly forgotten). “How can you judge such fine art when you haven’t seen enough of it?”

“You know, watching one episode should be enough to judge someone’s acting. Besides, I’ve seen _Spiderman_.” And that Disney Channel show, but Devi wasn’t going to bring that up now.

“That’s not fair,” he responded. Eleanor and Fabiola were watching the two of them bicker as though they were watching a tennis match between their two favorite teams, heads going back and forth to look at the two.

“You’ve quit shows before because you didn’t like the first episode,” Devi pointed out.

“Yes, but those shows didn’t have _Zendaya_ , David.”

Oh, for god’s sake if he didn’t shut up about Zendaya, she was about ready to throw hands.

“Okay, yeah, whatever,” she muttered in response, trying to get Ben to end the conversation already.

“No, you don’t get it,” he pressed. Damn him and his need to prove his point. Devi was learning that it was one of his more attractive qualities, watching him be absolutely passionate about a topic was like Devi’s drug. She loved seeing his eyes light up, and she loved how excited he got about things, but she just wanted to punch him when he used it against her. “Zendaya is our generation’s icon. She’s pretty, she’s a great dancer, she’s an amazing singer, and she’s a talented actress,” he listed off, counting them down on his fingers.

“Mentioning her face before her talent — such a male thing to do,” Devi retorted, knowing that the two other females on the table would agree with her. The accompanying gasp from Eleanor and the chiding “ _Ben!_ ” from Fabiola told her all she needed to know. What he had said wasn’t necessarily bad, it was just something she had noticed, and it was her chance to get Ben to shut up. Unfortunately, Ben finally set down his sandwich, and from the look in his darkened eyes, she knew that she was in for another earful. He looked mad but also pained, and Devi’s eyebrows furrowed at that.

“I mentioned how talented she is in three different aspects, and _that’s_ what you focus on?” Yes, because he was literally praising another girl right in front of her, and she was a hormonal teenager who was hard-core crushing on him.

“Why is it that males have the need to bring up appearance first, though?” she asked, still eating her rice, while Ben had forgone his lunch. She was somewhat tempted to just stuff the rest of the sandwich in his mouth, but that would be crossing some lines that she had no interest in crossing. 

“I just find her pretty! Is that such a crime?”

“No, of course not,” Devi replied, and she was honest. It wasn’t a crime, and it was her fault for being not as pretty as Zendaya. She obviously wasn’t tall enough, and she wasn’t skinny enough. Zendaya was 100 times more talented and prettier, and all Devi had going for her were her grades. Which, now she thought about it, Ben would constantly be fighting over her about, so even then that wasn’t something she could use to make herself more appealing to Ben.

“Then what’s the issue?” Devi bit her lower lip as she tried to figure out how to respond.

This issue was that she was insecure, and she was jealous over a celebrity crush, as if she hadn’t had one since forever on Nick Jonas. The issue was that Ben was constantly looking at someone else, but after Malibu, never once had he looked at _her_. The issue was that she missed her chance all that time ago, and she was regretting it.

But of course, that wasn’t something she could say.

“The issue is that you’re being patriarchal. You could’ve said that she was a great actress before saying that she was pretty. Why do men have the need to mention that a girl is pretty before they say she’s smart or that she’s talented?”

Something foreign flashed in Ben’s eyes, and he set his jaw tightly. “I’m literally talking about a celebrity who is paid to look pretty. If I were describing you, I’d say you were pretty and smart. If you were describing Nick Jonas, you’d say he was handsome before you’d say he was a great singer. Females do the same thing. It’s human nature to mention what they physically notice first before they mention something about the personality,” he ranted. Devi knew he was right, and she just desperately wanted this conversation to end because he had called her _pretty_. She knew he had only said it to make a point, and it was too much for her to handle. Her heart was beating hard in her chest, and she could feel her hands starting to tremble.

“Fine, fine. I’ll watch _Euphoria_ when I get home,” she muttered, angrily finishing the rest of her rice. The rest of them were too stunned at Devi’s admission to further the conversation, and that was that. She was mostly silent for the rest of the day, not even taking up Ben’s bait to bicker in class over the function of _x_ for a problem they were assigned in their calculus class. Her friends watched her strangely for the rest of the day, sharing worried glances when they thought she wasn’t watching, and she pretended that nothing that day had happened. It’d hurt more for her to remember Ben calling her pretty and knowing that it meant nothing more than a friendly compliment to her than it would to pretend that Ben had never uttered those words.

Her problem with females around Ben had gotten serious enough that by early December, she was jealous of Eleanor and Fabiola for spending more time with Ben without Devi.

Rationally, she knew she was being an idiot. Ben only started spending time with the two girls because Devi was best friends with them, but the love-sick, stupid part of her brain didn’t understand that concept. All that part of her could see was Ben having fun with girls that weren’t her, and honestly, she was beginning to hate herself.

She and Ben were watching Eleanor’s rehearsal for A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the auditorium after school for moral support while Fabiola was at her robotics club meeting, and once the rehearsal was done, Ben walked over to Eleanor. Devi lingered behind them for a moment, responding to a text from her mom, and she watched out of the corner of her eye as Ben walked up on stage and sat down next to her best friend, both of their legs dangling off the side of the stage.

Hitting send and putting her phone away, she stood up to make her way over, but her footsteps slowed when she saw the two of them in deep conversation. Lingering in the middle of the ally between the wall and the seats, she watched as Eleanor was gesturing widely with her hands, and Devi noticed how Ben’s attention was completely on the girl. His eyes followed her hand movements, and the two of them laughed at one point. She stood there watching them, feeling extremely conflicted.

On one hand, it was Ben’s trademark to look at someone and give them his entire attention. He was able to make people feel like they were important and that they mattered. It was one of the many things that drew Devi to him, and she was happy that Eleanor was getting the same treatment. But on the other, she was also…mad at Eleanor. It was just absolutely irrational, and yet, there she was – silently fuming. She was mad at Eleanor for taking Ben away from her, and Devi _knew_ that it was Ben who had walked over there. Devi knew that they were just friends, just like Ben was just friends with her. She hated this feeling, and she hated herself for feeling this way.

To make matters worse, she watched as Fabiola entered the auditorium from the other side just mere minutes later. She was holding a small Lego-type robot, and she looked so excited over something. Fabiola slowed down as she got closer to the stage, and as she was climbing the stairs, she looked around the auditorium, and Devi had enough presence of mind to pull out her phone and walk a bit closer to the wall to pretend to be on the phone.

Meeting eyes with her friend, Devi waved, and then pointed to the phone to gesture that she was speaking to someone. Fabiola nodded, and then she sat down on the other side of Ben. Immediately Ben and Eleanor directed their attention completely to what Fabiola was showing them. She was moving the robot around in her hands and pointing to different parts.

Even while standing so far away, Devi could practically _hear_ how excited Fabiola was about this robot, and she wanted to go over there and listen to her talk about how she coded for it, but she looked at how the two girls looked in Ben’s presence. Leaning her head back against the wall, she watched how the two girls had his sole attention. He was listening to them mostly speak, and he would talk every once in a while. Devi knew that being alone all the time had turned him more into a listener than a speaker, and in that moment, she knew that her friends were grateful for his ability to just listen. When the three girls were together, Devi had trouble simply listening to her friends, and it was often Fabiola who took that role on. It was something she was working on, but she was happy that Ben was able to do that for them when she couldn’t.

It was like two sides of a war were going on inside of Devi’s mind, and she was barely holding on to her sanity.

At some point, Eleanor was called by her teacher, and she left the others sitting there.

From where Devi was standing, she could only see the back of Ben’s head, but she could see him nodding along to what Fabiola was saying, and she could see that he was absolutely engaged in the conversation. Ben eventually held the robot in his own hands, and Fabiola was showing him what Devi could only assume were the different mechanisms within the robot and the different things the robot could do.

She wanted to be the one he would look at like that.

She wanted to be the one that Ben would devote his sole attention to, and Devi felt tears pricking her eyes at the thought.

It was frustrating knowing how absolutely stupid she was acting, but also having zero control over the way she was thinking. For god’s sake, she was jealous of her two best friends who were both in relationships with someone else. Not to mention the fact that Fabiola was _gay_.

Devi was overthinking, again, and she couldn’t help it. She couldn’t help herself being dragged by the waves of her thoughts – getting dragged farther and farther away from the safety of shore. She knew that eventually those waves were going to drag her so far away that she would have no hope of safety, no hope of return. She would be left adrift with the fear of being left alone and forgotten, and she would drown in the sparkling blue ocean that reminded her of the eyes that she had hopelessly fallen in love with.

That thought itself was like a wake-up call to her. It was as though someone had dumped a bucket of cold water over her, from the same ocean that she so desperately wanted to save herself from but also drown in, and she realized just how far _gone_ she was for Ben Gross to the point that she was jealous of her own best friends.

Devi let her arm drop, and she dragged her eyes away from Ben and Fabiola to stare up at the ceiling. Her eyes traced the light fixtures and the vents as she tried to control her breathing. Her eyes slipped shut, and she could feel her throat starting to close up, and she bit her bottom lip, hard, in an attempt to stop the tears from falling.

She tried to tell herself that she was Devi Vishwakumar. She overcame her father’s death, and she overcame the loss of her legs. She overcame the breakup with Paxton, and she would overcome this. She had to. She had to let Ben go, because if she didn’t, she would lose herself in the process. Devi was terrified of the thought that Ben could just look at her, and her heart would start beating uncontrollably in her chest. Even when she told herself to calm down, her body didn’t seem to want to listen to her, but instead, it just wanted to be closer to Ben.

Taking a deep breath, she counted backwards from ten. It usually worked when she was angry, but it surprisingly worked well enough to calm her breathing enough to the point where she didn’t feel like crying.

Devi opened her eyes, and she could feel her heart breaking into two when she found herself looking right into Ben’s eyes.

“Hey, you okay?” he asked, concern lining his voice.

The floodgates were returning, and she had to _go_.

“Um, yeah. My mom wants me home early,” she fibbed, and she practically ran out of the auditorium, counting backwards from 100 instead.

But it wasn’t until the week of Christmas break that Devi finally hit her breaking point. Four months. Four whole months of dealing with being jealous of Ben’s girlfriend, random females around him, random celebrities, and _her own best friends_. She was already constantly on edge, worried that Devi would slip up around Ben and blurt out that she had a ridiculously big crush on him. She worried that she would look into his intense blue eyes and tell him that she loved those eyes and loved looking into them and that she wouldn’t mind looking into them for the rest of her life.

Devi had already been caught a few times staring at Ben, and she had played it off as she was just spacing out or staring at the wall, but her friends weren’t dumb. She knew that they would eventually put two and two together even if they didn’t know exactly what happened at Malibu.

Ben continued to remain oblivious about everything, however, and she wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. One part of Devi wanted him to just understand that she was hurting and that she needed him just like he knew what she needed a year and half ago, but another part of her was glad that he didn’t know. He couldn’t break her heart even more by saying that he had moved on from her.

She just had to make it through Christmas, Valentine’s Day, prom, and graduation over the next five months, and then she would be free from seeing Ben Gross nearly every day. And besides, Ben applied to Yale and Devi applied to Princeton as their respective first choices – once September rolled around, they wouldn’t see each other until winter break. Devi would move on from Ben. She _had_ to move on from Ben.

That thought just became more and more painfully clear as time went by, and soon enough, Christmas time had rolled around. While it wasn’t very cold, all the shops were decorated by twinkling lights, and the streetlamps had a wreath hanging from each of them. Even Devi’s house was decorated courtesy of Prashant, Kamala, and Devi’s insistence of being the Christmas spirit. After all, Nalini couldn’t say no to three people.

Even school had calmed down quite a bit since everyone was just in a “jolly” mood for Christmas time since break was simply a week away. A different Christmas song would play every morning before their first class, and the number of times she had heard _All I Want for Christmas is You_ had to break some type of record. Devi didn’t mind it as much, and she was actually looking forward to a nice Christmas if it wasn’t for the crushing thought that Ben might have to spend the break alone. Again.

It had always bothered her that Ben’s parents would leave him alone so often, and it bothered it even more than Ben always brushed it off like it didn’t bother him because Devi knew that it did. Devi knew that Ben would hide his pain from everyone, and yet, he was so optimistic that this time would be different – that this time, they’d be around.

And so, when break came around, Devi made sure that she was always checking in on Ben, making sure that he wasn’t feeling alone. She knew that she would eventually have to distance herself from him to protect herself, but for now, he was more important. Devi could handle the heartbreak as long as she could protect Ben from it.

Their break started on a Wednesday, three days before Christmas. Knowing that no one was home yet, Devi went over to Ben’s house. She stepped in behind him, and he immediately went into the kitchen to throw the frozen mozzarella sticks into the oven and the popcorn bag into the microwave as Devi walked over to his living room to scroll through Netflix. They both left their sweaters and backpacks in a corner on the floor near the front door.

Devi was prepared to deal with her mother’s anger if she could spend as much time with Ben as possible, and she was even prepared to invite him over for dinner on Christmas if his parents weren’t around. It might make her friends and family suspicious, but she would deal with that. It didn’t matter to Devi that he was Jewish – she was Hindu, but that didn’t mean that her family didn’t spend Christmas together. It wasn’t about the religious aspect that made Christmas important to Devi, but rather it was the familial aspect. Her father loved celebrating Christmas because it gave him an entire day to spend with his family without the worry of work or anything else that might cause issues.

It was Devi’s turn to choose the movie, and she was in the mood for a romance because her love life wasn’t working out the way she wanted – might as well get satisfaction vicariously. She had been scrolling through the list for nearly 10 minutes when her eyes landed on _To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before_ , and she grinned.

“Hey, Ben!” she called out.

“What, David?” he yelled back.

“Do you know who Peter Kavinsky is?”

“No! Should I?”

“No!”

“Okay!”

Devi laughed to herself, and she set the movie up. She had seen the movie before, but she was willing to rewatch it, especially if Ben hadn’t seen it.

She got up to grab blankets and pillows from a closet in the hallway when she heard a loud curse from the kitchen. Devi dropped everything she was holding and ran over to the kitchen, nearly slipping on the hard-wooden floors because of her socks.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, her hand catching on the wall to stop herself from sliding on the floor. Feeling like her heart was in her throat, her eyes scanned the area, and she found Ben holding his hand under running water in the sink. The tray with the mozzarella sticks remained forgotten in the oven, but the oven door was open.

She quickly made her way over to Ben, and she held his wrist in her hands, trying to examine the burn.

“What happened?” she asked, putting the hand under the running water again. She walked over to the oven to close the door, and then Devi walked over to the cabinet where she knew the first aid supplies were.

“I was fixing the tray in the oven, but I forgot to wear gloves,” Ben murmured.

“Ben!” she scolded. She grabbed Ben’s wrist again and pulled him over to the counter. Pushing him into the chair, she stood across from him and grabbed the burn relief cream from the box. “You know better than that.”

“I got distracted…” he responded softly. Devi bent over slightly to blow on his fingers that were slowly blistering. It didn’t look like it would blister too bad because he managed to get his hand under water fast enough, but it would still hurt for a day or so.

“By me?” she asked.

“No, I was just thinking,” he responded. Devi nodded, and she grabbed cloth bandages to wrap his fingers up.

“Go sit down,” she said as she cleaned up the counter and put the first aid supplies away. “I’ll get the food.”

“It’s fine, David,” he said.

“Go,” she stressed. “I’m serious.” Ben looked at her for a second before he nodded and shuffled away, gingerly holding his injured hand in the other. Devi sighed through her nose as she watched Ben’s back. Once he was out of sight, she leaned against the refrigerator, a hand on her beating heart. She had really freaked out for a moment, and she was surprised she managed to keep herself calm.

She opened the microwave door and grabbed the popcorn bag before emptying it into a bowl, and then she grabbed the mozzarella sticks out the oven before opening the fridge to look for marinara pasta sauce. Eyes scanning the shelves in front of her, she let out a quiet cheer once she found the jar, and she emptied some of it into a smaller bowl. Grabbing the food, she carefully walked over to the living room, making sure she wouldn’t end up slipping on the floor again.

She set the food down on the coffee table in front of Ben, who had made himself comfortable and was scrolling through his phone while he waited for Devi. It seemed that he had picked up the blankets and pillows that she had dropped in the hallway, and she nearly chided him for doing so, but she realized that it would make it seem as though she cared _too_ much.

He looked up when she sat down on the other end of the sofa, covering herself with the blanket.

“Thanks, Devi,” he spoke up, and she looked up at him in surprise at the genuine tone. She smiled at him, and he smiled in response. Her breath stuttered for a brief second, and she hoped she didn’t choke on air visibly.

“Let’s just watch the movie, Gross,” she responded. He laughed but nodded.

They quieted down soon enough, only speaking to make brief comments about the movie.

“Okay but if that were me, I would’ve put the box under lock and key,” Ben piped up when Lara-Jean’s letter was mailed to Peter Kavinsky.

“You wouldn’t need to do that if you hid the box well enough,” Devi retorted.

“True,” Ben agreed. “Lara-Jean was just dumb enough to think that a tall shelf would be protection enough.” Devi snorted.

“You got that right.”

About 40 minutes into the movie, Devi’s attention moved from the movie to Ben. She had seen the movie already, and she was more interested in seeing Ben’s reactions. At first, she didn’t think that Ben would even pay much attention to the movie, but it seemed like the plot was interesting enough that it drew him in. He was chewing on his popcorn slowly, and his eyes were shining with the reflection of the TV.

If Devi pretended hard enough, she could imagine this being a date with Ben. Him inviting her over for a movie and snuggling together on the couch. Of course, reality was a slap to her face, and she knew that her imagination couldn’t be farther from the truth, but if she stretched her hand out, she could grab Ben’s hand. She knew that once she held on, she would try her best not to let go, and that scared her. She was terrified of how strongly she felt for the boy sitting next to her, but she didn’t have the immediate need to run far away as fast as possible as she did back in sophomore year.

Eventually, she couldn’t hold it in any longer, and her voice broke the trance that Ben was in.

“Ben,” she called out hesitantly. He looked over at her.

“Hmm?”

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Yeah.” His attention was completely on her, and the movie was forgotten. She wanted to lose herself in his eyes, but she hated that she couldn’t.

Devi bit her lip before voicing her question. “Who’s your ideal type?”

“That was random,” he responded, instead of answering her question.

“I’m curious,” she shrugged. “I was just thinking about how Peter thought his type was Gen, but he ended up falling in love with Lara-Jean,” she reasoned, trying to make the question more about the movie than herself. She was unconsciously comparing herself to Lara-Jean and Shira to Gen, hoping for a happy ending of her own that wasn’t coming true.

Ben looked at Devi thoughtfully before setting the bowl of popcorn back on the table and turning in his seat, so his back was pressed up against the arm rest. His eyes bore into her as he responded. “I guess it would be someone who cared more for the people around her than for herself.” He had a faraway look in his eyes even though they were looking right into Devi’s. “I would like her to be brave and kind. Oh, and of course, she has to be smart. I need someone to have intellectual conversations with.”

Devi bit her lip even harder as he started listing, feeling her heart constrict in pain more and more. She regretted asking him anything. She wondered why she had to go and open her mouth when everything was fine the way it was. Why did she have to inflict this pain upon herself when she knew that she wasn’t any of those things that Ben wanted?

She was grateful that the blanket covered her hands that were balled into fists, her nails digging into her palm painfully. She needed that pain to distract her from the pain in her heart.

“And I suppose it would be helpful if she balances me out, you know? Someone to make sure I keep my feet grounded and someone there to make me feel happy when I’m alone. Someone who knows what I might need before I say I need it.” He finished speaking softly, and Devi couldn’t bear it anymore.

She was broken. Ben had broken her.

The worst part was, she couldn’t even blame him.

“That sounds very specific,” she said, trying to force her voice not to tremble. He tilted his head at her, and then he slowly nodded.

“Yeah, I guess it is.”

“So, you already have a girl in mind?” she asked, not knowing why she needed the confirmation.

“Yes.”

“I…I need some air,” she mumbled, tearing the blanket off of her. She nearly tripped over her feet as she walked away from Ben, and she just managed to stumble over to the backyard. She faintly heard Ben calling for her, but she ignored him as tears finally trickled down her cheeks. Devi scoffed at her own weakness as she angrily wiped away the tears.

Walking towards the pool, she wrapped her arms around herself, feeling chilly in her short-sleeved T-shirt. Devi sat cross-legged next to the pool, not willing to put her feet in, but also not willing to sit in one of the chairs. She liked looking at the still water, so different from the tumultuous waves of an ocean. It was calming to look at the stillness, and she realized that it was why she loved Ben’s eyes so much. They were the color of the ocean, but they were calm. They were steady. She could center herself just by looking into his eyes.

Devi heard the door to the backyard open a minute later, and she heard Ben’s footsteps approach her – slow and calm as though he were trying to make sure that he wasn’t going to scare her away, but it wasn’t Ben that scared her.

It was her own feelings.

She flinched when she felt a weight settle on her back, and she turned her head to find Ben covering her with his jacket. It smelled like him, and she tried her best not to breathe it in obviously. He sat down in the same position next to her and looked at her.

“Devi,” Ben whispered. She hated that tone. It was the tone that meant that he was here for her, no matter what. It meant that he would listen to her concerns and do everything in his power to help her. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she muttered, clenching her arms even tighter.

“It’s not nothing,” he responded, shuffling closer to her on the floor. “You’re crying. Why?”

She couldn’t answer him, so she didn’t.

“Devi, please,” he begged after a minute of silence. He sounded so upset and so genuinely _worried_ for her that she broke.

“I’m upset because I’m not your ideal type,” she murmured.

“What?” he asked, surprised. She gave him a sad smile, and then she looked up at the darkening sky.

“Ever since I broke up with Paxton, I realized that I was jealous.”

“Of me?” he jerked away from her slightly, and she knew that he was going to hate her.

“No. Not of you. Of the girls around you.” He didn’t respond, so she continued. She hoped that he would stay quiet, so she could get everything off her chest. “The entire time I was dating Paxton, I would watch you and Shira, and I realized that my relationship with Paxton wasn’t what I wanted. It was what I thought I wanted, but I wanted something like your relationship with her. I wanted to be open, to be free to myself, but around Paxton I was always censoring myself. But…around you, I could be me. You’ve seen the worst side of me already, but you chose to stick around. You chose to be friends with me, and I liked that. I liked that you knew the real me. I liked that I didn’t have to pretend around you.

“But then I broke up with Paxton, and I saw you with Shira, and I realized I was jealous of Shira because she was with you. I wanted to be in her position, but I lost my chance back in sophomore year, and you were happy. How could I come between you two like that?” Her voice trembled as more tears fell down her cheeks, but somehow, she felt as though the weight on her shoulders was getting lighter. She peeked a look at Ben, and he looked surprised. His mouth was slightly open, and he seemed to have stopped breathing for a moment.

“Ben?” she called out, and he jerked in place.

“Yeah, yeah I’m listening.” Nodding, she continued.

“Then you broke up with her, and I realized I was jealous of any girl that got your attention. Can you believe I was jealous of Eleanor and Fab?” she scoffed. “I hated myself for that, but I couldn’t help it. I have this stupid, ridiculous crush on you, but you moved on. Besides, I’m not even your ideal type. I’m not even close to it, and I’m jealous of a girl I don’t even know,” she spoke over her hiccups. Her voice was trembling, but her mouth felt dry as sand.

She had gotten everything off her chest, and she was preparing herself for the heartbreak when she saw Ben reach over to her with his not-injured hand to pull on her right arm. He pulled until she let him grab it before grabbing her hand and squeezing it.

“You’re unbelievable, you know that?” he murmured before rubbing his thumb back and forth against the back of her hand.

“Huh?” she asked.

“Devi, you’re so blind. You’ve been staring at me all this time but didn’t manage to see that I’ve been staring right back?”

At this point, Devi could only manage another “Huh?”

“Devi, you’re jealous of yourself, which is an incredible feat,” he teased. Devi’s brain broke, and she couldn’t manage a response, so Ben continued speaking.

“ _You_ are my ideal type. You’re smart, you’re beautiful, and you’re braver than you think. You braved school when your father died and when you lost the use of your legs. You came over today and invited me over for dinner twice this week just to make sure I wouldn’t be lonely around Christmas.” Devi looked up at him surprised, and he laughed gently. It felt like honey to Devi’s ears. “I’m not dumb, Devi. I knew what you were doing, and I’m so grateful. You help me stay on my toes and as you always remind me, make sure I’m not getting a big head,” he joked, trying to imitate Devi’s voice, and she finally cracked a smile. “And besides, I have a secret to tell you.”

“What?” she asked, her voice hoarse.

“I never patched things up with Shira. I just made all of that up because I wanted you to think I was happy with Shira so that way, you’d forget about me while you were with Paxton.” Devi’s breath caught in her throat.

“Ben-“

“No, I know. I should’ve broken up with her, but she was my normal, and I was scared. I guess we’re both cowards in that sense, huh?” he asked, playfully pushing his shoulder up against hers.

“You’re an asshole,” she muttered in response, wiping away the stray tears. She looked up at Ben and smiled, and he smiled back. It was one full of love, and she finally felt her heart mending itself. She could feel how his words acted like a glue and put the broken pieces back together. “So, what now?” she asked.

Ben looked at her seriously before tilting his head. He shifted even closer to her, their thighs brushing. She watched as he carefully raised his injured hand towards her face, cupped her jaw, and then brought her face closer to his. Their lips were mere centimeters away from each other when he whispered, his breath mingling with hers. “This.”

Ben kissed her, and she felt her heart soaring. Devi forgot about everything and just _felt_. She felt his lips moving against hers, softly, gently, and she felt the bandages on his hand brushing her cheek roughly. His hand was still holding her own, and she squeezed it, trying to convey how happy she felt in that moment, and Ben laughed against her lips.

They pulled away from each other, not exactly breathless, but extremely happy. Devi looked into Ben’s eyes, and she finally realized that she was allowed to stare into them as long as she wanted. She was allowed to drown in them, drown in Ben.

She almost forgot about everything else, but Ben had to be Ben.

“So,” he began, a smug smirk gracing his face, and Devi immediately groaned. She pushed her face into Ben’s shoulder, and she froze right after. It took her a second to realize she could do that now before relaxing. Ben’s hand that was cupping her jaw moved to draw her into a hug, his other hand leaving hers and joining his around her back. “You want to tell me how jealous you were over your best friends?”

Devi just groaned into his shoulder again.

**Author's Note:**

> If you like the story, please leave a comment and let me know what you think~ I appreciate comments!
> 
> Right now, this is just a standalone one-shot, but I do have plans for creating a series of sorts where I show the buildup of Ben and Devi's relationship :)
> 
> I'm not very active in posting on tumblr, but I do have one (https://foreverfallingforthestars.tumblr.com) so if you want to hmu and talk about whatever (ehem NHIE, AOS, kpop/kdramas, writing, other tv shows, books, etc.), feel free!


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